Ukraine: Kiev condemns Russia-backed separatist elections in war-torn east | The Telegraph
Kiev has condemned elections in Russian-backed separatist controlled areas of eastern Ukraine as illegitimate and unlawful. Residents of the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics”, which broke away from Ukraine in a bloody conflict with the pro-Western government in 2014, voted for new leaders of the regions on Sunday. Alexander Zakharcheno, the previous “prime minister” of the Donetsk People’s Republic, was assassinated in a bombing in the city August. Kremlin-annointed candidates are almost guaranteed to win the polls after potential rivals were prevented from running. “The current attempt by Russia to justify, organize and then legitimize a fake ‘voting’ process in the occupied Donbas represents a flagrant violation of norms and principles of international law and Ukrainian legislation and constitutes a blatant breach of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said.